


Small Gestures

by stripped-down-to-skeletons (and_the_devil_laughs)



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Enlistment, Henwook, Phone Call
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 16:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_the_devil_laughs/pseuds/stripped-down-to-skeletons
Summary: Henry gets a pretty short haircut. They talk. It's winter.





	Small Gestures

**Author's Note:**

> ["头发剪了 会不会太短 OK吗？" - "got a haircut, is it too short?"](https://twitter.com/henrylaufp/status/808695335069499393)

“You know, this isn’t that bad?”

 

“Did you really…?”

 

Ryeowook was on the other line, and Henry can hear the exhaustion in his voice, a note of tired that makes itself known the end of most sentences, a drop. Active duty, Henry thinks, must be just as tiring as idol schedules. Maybe more, with the weight of a nation’s security resting on his shoulders.

 

“I really did,” Henry said, a secret smile to himself as he ran his fingers through it for probably the fiftieth time. New haircuts are like that, always have your hand on your skull, always hyper aware of such a big change.

 

“I don’t believe it.”

 

Henry snorts. “Would I call you just to lie to you?” It’s honestly a good look, Henry thinks, reclining back in his seat. The city is bright right now, just like the neon from the corner store as it flashes across his car’s hood.

 

There’s a pause on Ryeowook’s side, a weighted one that Henry can almost feel, here in the warmth of his car. The pause was long enough for him to think back to that conversation they had so long ago, when their positions were reversed.

 

“ _I want to see! How does it feel?”_ He had asked.

 

 _“It’s so...”_ Ryeowook had said, voice over the speaker drawing out in a way just noticeable enough for Henry to hear him find the right adjective. _“Foreign.”_

 

 _“And cute.”_ Henry had replied almost immediately.

 

Henry crosses one arm over his stomach, relaxing a bit. Trying to pretend that Ryeowook was there with him, a fleeting sensation he can hold on to if he closes his eyes and tries real hard, squeeze them shut to the point of blinding whiteness. Maybe _there_ he will be.

 

This time, it doesn’t work. He doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the static or the pauses, but for the moment he closes his eyes, he’s still _here._ A car with the heater on, winter coldly blowing by just outside the windows, a bubble of time interrupted by his own realization on how much he missed the person just on the other side of the phone.

 

“You should send me pictures so I can see,” Ryeowook says after a while, when it had gone on in silence for a bit too long. “I want to know how you look bald,” he laughs.

 

“Bald? Baby,[ I got bangs.](https://twitter.com/henrylaufp/status/808695335069499393)”

 

“Wait, you’re bald except for bangs?”

 

“No! No, god no, that’s not it. It’s. Like, two inches, sort of. But I have bangs and you making me explain it makes it sound really damn ugly!”

 

“Okay! Okay! I get it!”

 

Henry fiddles with the lining of his shirt, breathing in lightly, giving his hair a quick look in the rearview mirror before closing his eyes. He laughs a little, quietly saying, “Half my fans are mad at me now. Maybe more. I told them it's okay, my hair grows quickly.”

 

Ryeowook groans on the other end. “Are they really?”

 

Henry realizes that maybe, just maybe, he should have left some of that info out. He can feel the cogs of a mini rant about rude fans in the works, and counters with, “Well, just a little bit. It’s pretty funny, to be honest. However, I _did_ see a few people say that I look handsome in it too.”

 

Ryeowook snorts. “I’m glad to hear that.” There’s a pause, intentionally placed, and Henry has a sense he knows what Ryeowook wanted to say, _would_ have said, if they were alone, not with a military phone between them. Then the silence breaks and it sounds like another normal conversation, him continuing with, “I’m happy that you’re getting support, too.”

 

“Hm. Yeah, it’s honestly not too bad.” Then, to lighten the mood, “Honestly, I like it. It’s oh so cute.”

 

“You’re really conceited,” Ryeowook giggled, and that brought a huge smile to Henry’s face. He lives for that laugh, no matter what it takes to bring it to him.

 

Henry wished Ryeowook could see him roll his eyes and had to settle for a loud scoff. “As if.”

 

“Don’t even try to deny it!”

 

“I can and will, all day, every day, you can believe that!”

 

“You’re so ridiculous, I swear.”

 

Henry pursed his lips, trying to not laugh too much because he knows that a conversation can’t be held when one person is constantly laughing.

 

“You’re cute too,” Henry added, a moment’s thought lost behind the urgency of the sentiment. It felt like it had been welling up too long to hold on to it any longer - he knows he shouldn’t have, not on military lines, but he thinks it’s okay this once. Innocent enough this once. “And I miss you.”

 

It wasn’t anything new, they’d said it so many times, over the phone in different countries, even recently - yet it somehow stung the most right now. He had to hold back that creeping sadness in his voice that threatened to overflow his eyes…

 

He thinks the cold makes you sadder, more lonely and wishing your favorite person was there to fill your space with warmth.

 

A second later and Henry thinks he could hear the wetness of held back tears, “I miss you too.”

 

“I know it’s not a long time, but it’s too long,” Henry adds, speaking in context without really mentioning the distance, like it was too delicate to talk about. Maybe it was.

 

“I know. Just be patient.” He sounds like a soldier, especially the way he is strong for the both of them. “Keep calling me and telling me about your dumb hair and I’ll call you when I write another song. It’ll be almost the same.”

 

“I will.” He adjusts himself, sets the chair back a little further. “And I’ll drunk call you too.”

 

He lets the warmth of his little car cozy up to him. The neon is bright on his hood and he can glimpse it in his rearview mirror. Ryeowook is giggling softly into the receiver.

 

“You better not. Imagine the things you’d say.”

 

“That’s sorta the point. It would be really, really funny.”

 

“I will make sure to screen your call from now on - if only phones sent smell signals so I could tell whether or not you’re drinking.”

 

“Ohhhhh, ho ho _yes_ ,” Henry exclaims, a jump in his seat as the possibilities rush to him in a wave of thoroughly-imagined, chick-flick montage style of all the times he’d call Ryeowook. “I’d eat fish then call you.”

 

“Oh my god…”

 

“Or salt and vinegar chips. Or coffee. But I’d like, wait like ten minutes after coffee. It would be so bad.”

 

The list went on and on, and Henry relished in each and every groan of disapproval that was sent his way after a suggestion.

 

“Okay, okay, this has to stop,” Ryeowook finally said, a couple of suggestions later when it was very obvious that Henry had no intention of stopping.

 

Henry let out a content sigh. He knows there’s more to it than just ending the absurd things he was saying. “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

Ryeowook’s sigh was hefty. No one really wanted to hang up.

 

“You’ll call me too, right?” Henry asked, quickly, quietly, layers of insecurity suddenly rising and wrapping themselves around each syllable .

 

“Of course. You need to pick up, you know?” He spoke in layers too.

 

Henry laughed a little. “I will pick up this time. Sorry, jet lag always messes with me for too long.”

 

Ryeowook snorted. “I remember.”

 

“Good night.”

  


“Good night.”

  


The click on the line finalized their goodnights and after a lingering moment, Henry’s hand drifted down. He knew he had things to do, places to be, but he didn’t know  what to do. He had places to be and he also felt aimless.

  


But then…

  


He sat up, at an unbalance when he realized just how far back he managed to tilt his seat while he was talking. Seat up, adjusted mirrors, stretching out his neck, he pulled out from the parking spot. The bright green and red across the hood, in his mirrors, reflecting on him in his look in the rearview mirror, shifted and finally disappeared as he hit the back roads.

 

He smiled to himself, rolling down the window to experience the weather, because the cold was the biggest reminder of something important on the horizon.

 

Christmas.

 

He drove, and it was aimless at first, like he often is, but like always, he returned to a sense of himself, and of direction. It comes full circle _always,_ and at the end of it he knows that things will be okay.

 

Just have faith.

 

While he doesn’t have music to work on, he does have something big to look to right now. In fact, he has _shopping_ to look forward to. Maybe it’s just window shopping to do right now, but then he has Christmas break to look forward to.

 

Ryeowook and quilts and kisses to look forward to.

 

What could he get him? What would be enough to explain just how much he means to him, be impersonal enough that no one would think he had a secret girlfriend, and be perfect for him? But, most importantly, what could he get away with?

 

A blanket? A game? A secret phone so they can have phone sex?

 

Maybe a…

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a drabble...  
> Huge thanks to Toby!


End file.
